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jasrdunn

06-13-2007, 04:35 AM

So Lex Luthor has this secret lab inside a dam, where he's building an army of experimental super-soldiers, and, according to the script, we see a vast room filled with them. I had to design this space and build it into a matte painting for EntityFX. (http://www.entityfx.com)

http://www.robotrumpus.com/JRD_illustration/images/2007/smallville/clone_room_final.jpg

First, we started with some quick-sketches to establish the basic design of the room.

http://www.robotrumpus.com/JRD_illustration/images/2007/smallville/clone_room_sketches.jpg

http://www.robotrumpus.com/JRD_illustration/images/2007/smallville/clone_room_concept_01_06.jpg

In the original designs, the soldiers were arranged around a central control tower. We had a photo library of soldiers, which were shot of the live actors from a variety of angles. I played around with this for a while.

http://www.robotrumpus.com/JRD_illustration/images/2007/smallville/clone_room_concept_01_13.jpg

http://www.robotrumpus.com/JRD_illustration/images/2007/smallville/clone_room_concept_02_07_c_sm.jpg

http://www.robotrumpus.com/JRD_illustration/images/2007/smallville/clone_room_concept_02_07_a_sm.jpg

The feedback I kept getting was that the frame was too busy and complicated. Keep it simple and go lighter on the sci-fi.
I removed the central tower altogether, and added racks of soldiers in the distance. Tim Ketzer and Glenn Curry built some 3d soldiers to stick in the background, and projected the extreme foreground guys onto crude geometry to get some believable parallax out of them, and I assembled the rest as 3d layers in After Effects.

Here (http://www.robotrumpus.com/JRD_illustration/images/2007/smallville/soldiers_01b.mov)is the final comp...

JJASSO

06-15-2007, 07:49 PM

Hey Jason, interesting concepts here, I personally like the central tower concept more, it must be difficult to play with light on these stock photos. on the first one I would add a little blur to either the foreground or the background elements

the major problem in this images are the linear perspective, check it out
nice mood !
keep it up

RobertoOrtiz

06-15-2007, 08:09 PM

Great work!
Do you have a final "comp" of the shot?
-R

RQuack

06-15-2007, 08:13 PM

Yeah I do prefer the last image there with a tower but I know it wouldn't fit in and I still like it anyway, great job. :)

jasrdunn

06-15-2007, 10:07 PM

Thanks for the comments! You can see the final comp here:
http://www.robotrumpus.com/JRD_illustration/images/2007/smallville/soldiers_01b.mov
~Jason

kanikasehgal

06-28-2007, 06:48 PM

great going !

4* :thumbsup:

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